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A propos yesterday's post, note that the dollar figures are Canadian dollars, not U.S. dollars. A graduate student in philosophy at University of Toronto writes to say their stipend–in Toronto!–is only $26,000 (Canadian). How are Canadian graduate students managing? Do you take out loans? Do most students work part-time in addition to studies and TAing?
As a/the graduate student in philosophy at University of Toronto, I'd like to take this opportunity to elaborate. The minimum is $26,000, though in the end I will get closer to around $28,000 this year, which includes non-guaranteed bonus payments from the department and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Keep in mind that after the first year in the program only about $18,000 (of the $26,000; or $20,000 of the $28,000) is fellowship money. The rest comes from TAships.
Toronto is a very expensive city, especially for housing. A 1-bedroom costs on average something like $2,400. I'm lucky enough to have a good deal and to live with my partner, so my rent costs are relatively low. That being said, the city is still expensive for other things too. And I have more debt than the average PhD student, in large part because I am doing a combined JD/PhD program and had to pay for 2 years of law school. (Toronto is the most expensive law school in the country, though still much cheaper than comparable American schools, at around $34,000 CAD per year.) I am also ineligible for government student loans, as they max out at 10 years of coverage. I'm in my 11th year of university. As a result, over the past few years, I have had to take on a bunch of extra TA and RA appointments. Luckily, our philosophy department is massive, so there are almost always tons of TAing opportunities. By the end of the summer, I will have had something like 11 TA appointments in 3 years. But in the end I have to work, between classes, TAing, RAing, etc. on average about 50 true work hours per week during the semester (as in, time spent actually reading philosophy, writing, grading, etc., and not chatting in the lounge or reading blogs). I'm not really capable of concentrating on serious work for longer than this. Since so much of the time is spent doing TA and RA work, I don't have the time I would like to dedicate myself to my coursework, and I have even less time to spend on my own research. Even then, I have to live extremely frugally to get by.
Some of these factors are particular to me. But I know that my peers who, e.g., do not have law school debt are also struggling to get by, and most of us (including myself) would be doing just fine if we were guaranteed as much money as our peers in comparable graduate programs in philosophy.
I was a graduate student in Ontario 5 years ago and the reason I did not choose to continue into a PhD program at University of Toronto (UofT), even after I was offered, was that the funding was even less, at the time $17,500 CAD if I remember correctly. It's nice to know they've raised the $$$ amounts ever so slightly, but it's still low compared to US grad programs and wildly off base when it comes to the cost of living in Toronto these days.
My understanding is that there is the assumption that you'll either work part-time, go into debt, rely on a spouse/partner, or win funding of some form. Notably, I was explicitly told that SSHRC funding (major government funding for humanities and social science research in Canada) is essentially assumed on the department's part to "make up the rest" of your funding, even though receiving that funding is relatively rare, limited in how many people in a department can receive it, and incredibly reliant on the nature of your research.
As you said, $26k CAD is pretty tough for the average person in Toronto. Everyone I know in grad school there works multiple part time jobs or is extremely reliant on a working spouse. I don't anyone who was already wealthy and going into a PhD program, but I assume that's also a common component as well.
When I told the UofT department that I would not be accepting their offer because of the funding they were very understanding, though, which makes me think that they've heard it before and are at least aware of the reality of their offers.
Toronto grad student here (not the same one, and not in philosophy). I'm not aware of people taking out loans, though I suppose it could happen.
Nonetheless, in Toronto it is impossible to manage without doing at least one of the following things:
-Earning a federal or provincial scholarship
**in the case of the main federal scholarships in the social sciences and humanities (SSHRC), the $ amounts have not been changed since the early 2000s (!). The two main awards are $20,000/y x 4 years or $35,000/y x 3 years. It is common practice in departments to partially claw back base funding if the student receives one of these scholarships. The tuition waiver is also usually clawed back, meaning that students must subtract an additional $8000 per year.
-Finding housing with multiple other people to reduce rent expenses, or already living in an apartment that hasn't had its rent raised. One can also reduce costs by living in one of Toronto's many dreadful basement suite apartments.
-Living with family (obviously not an option for the vast majority of people who come from outside of Toronto).
-Taking on significantly higher grading and teaching hours. Seniority-based hiring policies makes this an increasingly available option in later years
-Part time work outside of TAing (rare, but more common as people enter later ABD years).
The last two options are both the most common and the riskiest because they can significantly increase completion times, especially compared to Ivey-leaguers who typically only teach in a couple years of their degree.
The TA union wage was recently increased to around $50/hr, which is decent, but still does not come close to redeeming the situation. The 'stipend' of 26,000 you have posted is actually composed of a lump sum fellowship *and* employment income from teaching contracts. In a similar vein, some other departments have 'increased' funding levels by adding a required RAship component.
Not a fun situation!
It's also worth noting that at most institutions Canadian students _pay their tuition from their stipends_. When I was a graduate student at McGill (2010-17), the stipend was $17500, from which ~$2-3000 went to tuition (I don't recall the exact number, and it increased substantially over that period). I believe that after I left the level of support increased to $21500. The one caveat is that the stipend included just one TAship, so if you got a second one, that money was extra.
The cost of living at the time was also quite low (that has changed dramatically in the last four years). Some of us took out loans, some of us got external funding (e.g. the FRQSC paid $20k for three years, and SSHRC paid a _lot_ more), and we scraped by on the low cost of living. The real problem was that funding was only ever guaranteed for four years.
I'd also note that TAs at McGill are also currently on strike.
When I was offered a PhD place at UofT in 2010, the stipend was $25k for the first year and $15k after that. It's sad to see how little it's changed in the last 14 years. I was also told that the SSHRC doctoral scholarship would be almost entirely clawed back and I'd end up with $20k in the 2nd year onwards if I won one. Of course most students do not win one, and there is a limited number per department so all students in a department could never win one.
Relatedly, when I won that SSHRC doctoral fellowship in 2010, it was worth $20k which is the same value today. Although, the federal government just announced it woud finally be raised to $40k/year. If departments keep their low stipends, there will be a massive inequality between their students once that change takes effect, with some students earning $26,000 and others potentially $66k, depending on how much is clawed back.
Yes, I received an offer from Toronto (my alma mater) and had some US offers too. On financial terms, it was an easy choice: for one US offer, the difference was nearly double *before even factoring in USD-CAD conversion*! That said, I know some people who chose Toronto over US options, and I completely understand that given my affection for the department. One reason they can do that is that they are able to negotiate their funding higher at Toronto by virtue of the competing offers, and get things close to par. This possibility for negotiation is something future applicants to Toronto should keep in mind.
In my experience, the department is very aware of the reality. I'm sure it's not much in their hands. The top top university administration would probably say that this is downstream of broader issues with the current crisis in funding for Ontario higher education. But that's not a subject I know well enough to comment on in any depth.
In 2016 I was offered $17,000 in funding for a PhD spot. I started thinking about how to make the budget work, but rent + food was more than the funding so I accepted somewhere else without much thought.
Shame on U of T with its almost $ 4 billion (Canadian $) endowment.
I resonate with all of this. As a fourth year candidate, my funding period is over as of this month. I was fortunate enough to apply for and receive an Ontario Graduate Scholarship worth $15,000 each year, but that is not terribly common. Even then, Western clawed back just over a third of this value by lowering my funding package in such a way that I ended up receiving about $32,000 annually. Now, as a co-parent of four children, I was able to receive roughly $15,000 per year in grants and about $15,000 in loans through OSAP (our province’s student loan program), but obviously most graduate students will not be in this position and will therefore not receive this much from OSAP. As it stands, I am ABD and have no idea how I am going to be able to help my partner support our family AND complete my thesis. Now, I should state that I knew all of these things were possibilities going into my program. No one forced me to attend Western. I made a conscious decision. What is further, when I was applying for programs, Trump was in power, and I was uncomfortable moving my family to the only first world country which is in the top ten countries in the world for gun violence, especially when healthcare in the States is not socialized. So yes, our situation as grad students here in Canada is both unethical and untenable, but I’m not convinced that things are really all that much better for grad students in the U.S.
BTW we don't have tuition waiver at Western. So in fact we receive just 15000 cad a year!!!!
The SSHRC system already privileges those who are independently wealthy. A lot of it comes down to grades, at least according to our Director of Graduate Studies. Many students who are not independently wealthy have to take on extra work to get by. Because of this, they can't spend as much time on coursework, so their grades suffer. And because their grades suffer, they fare worse in the SSHRC grant process. Because they don't get SSHRC awards, they need to take on extra work. So on and so forth. The disparity will only increase once the SSHRC funding increases.
I love my department for many reasons, and I'm sure that this is not completely in their hands, but they don't appear to be making an effort to recognize or do anything about this vicious cycle.
I attended York University for graduate school, which is also in Toronto (graduated in 2015). As noted above, students who received OGS or SSHRCC get extra funding. There were also some dissertation fellowships that the department usually got for a student in their final year of their PhD, and there were several pots of money you could use for conference travel (though you had to pay out of pocket initially).
The reality of a safety net in Canada should be considered here. Major health insurance is covered. I finished grad school with two small children in tow. Their births were fully covered and then my partner and I received a cheque each month from the government to help with the kids (I think $100 per kid per month). I also received additional health benefits through the university because of our union (e.g. dental).
Of course, it was still Toronto, and we still felt the financial squeeze. I finished a year early because we needed to move to a cheaper city.
I have to say the U of Toronto endowment is irrelevant: first, for a school of its size, it's not a very large endowment; and second, like most endowments, it's not just a pool of money the administration can dip into for the needs du jour, so even if it were big, it would be largely irrelevant to the problem under discussion. There are systemic financial problems in the funding of Canadian higher education that no doubt explain what seems like very inadequate funding for PhD students.
The system, at least from one vantage, is sound. Consider the following.
The academic philosophy market is wildly over-saturated. There are way too many PhD candidates (and others) chasing a relatively small–and decreasing–pool of jobs, in an already unfair market (where pedigree, networks, etc., are sometimes better guarantees of placement than the quality of existing scholarship or the promise thereof), and where many universities are financially in the red and at risk of imploding.
Additionally, in key Canadian provinces, racial preferences for faculty hiring are now not just rampant and overt, but also rendered overt and explicit by appeal to their provincial human rights codes. (Those code provisions, however, have yet to be tested against the Charter, i.e., the federal, constitutional bill of rights.) So, it may not matter if you want to the correct departments and published well; quite a few departments will hire primarily based on identity anyway.
Those two considerations must be coupled with an overall skepticism of philosophers' work output. This is especially important given the field's recent propensity to produce sanctoramous imperialistic ideologues who are entirely uncritical of their own core normative assumptions and propositions, let alone about whether their work is largely just bullshit anyway. And no, I'm not just referring to ethical and political philosophy…
So, any deterrent that the system can throw at candidates from undertaking philosophy doctorates (i.e., likely ruining their lives and those of others, for at least a few years), including and especially via the perpetuation of low wages, should be defended to the hilt.
Another important consideration would be to focus on the rampant increase in university administration. Multiple departments and faculties in all universities, let alone the universities themselves, are now hiring DEI staff–a great many of them earning salaries of $120,000 or more. Given that this is the entrenchment of racism and totalitarianism in the academy, perhaps the unions and the graduate students can lobby to remove such staff and to have those salaries rededicated to them instead? https://universityaffairs.ca/the-many-faces/centering-the-voices-of-muslim-women-doing-equity-work-in-the-academy/
I can appreciate where you are coming from. However, defending the "perpetuation of low wages" would only help to mitigate the "wildly over-saturated" philosophy market by preventing those without the financial means from competing fairly with those who already do have the financial means for that small and decreasing pool of jobs. I trust that this matters to you, since you take issue with identity, as opposed to merit, based hirings. As for whether the field of philosophy has a propensity to produce "sanctoramous imperialistic ideologues", who uncritically fail to consider whether their own work is largely bullshit, surely the way to correct this perceived problem is not to shrink the number of people entering into philosophy, but to expand it. For by making it easier for a wide variety of people, each with their own values and starting points, to become trained philosophers, we would thereby be increasing the odds of someone, somewhere, holding such ideologues as there might be to account. On both of the considerations that you raise, then, it seems to me that the way forward would actually involve making it easier for ALL folks to learn the art of philosophy. Oh, and I think I get what you are trying to do there, you subtle humorist you, raising the issue of racial preferences whilst adopting the moniker of "Johnny Eh MacDonald!" Clever.
In the Fall of 2023, the University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies posted a report, "Overview of Graduate Funding at University of Toronto," according to which the "average base-funding packages for funded doctoral programs" in 2022-23 was $19 525 for Humanities students. The Report's authors add that the "annual net income" (which = "total university earnings less their tuition fees") for Humanities doctoral students in 2020-21 was $34 688. The added income includes "income earned through research or teaching assistantships, fellowships, internal and external awards, and other activities."
According to a 2021 survey, "43.0% of doctoral students at U of T were concerned they would not have enough funds to cover the cost of housing and 16.1% were concerned that their food might run out before they received funds to purchase more groceries."
In the federal government's new budget (April, 2024), the amount granted for a SSHRCC doctoral fellowship will increase from $20 000 per year to $40 000 starting in 2024-25, but most doctoral students don't get a SSHRCC fellowship.
In Canada, provincial governments bear the primary responsibility for administering post-secondary schools. Ontario's current government treats education as job training and has shown little regard for the humanities.
Briefly: Paul's pointer to this document https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Educational-Report-Final-Accessible-GFWG-20240115.pdf is valuable, but the data there are not helpful to Paul's concluding moral, that "Ontario's current government treats education as job training and has shown little regard for the humanities": according to the document, of the four disciplinary "divisions" into which Y1–4 PhD students are tranched for calculation of "Average Annual Net Income", Humanities comes out *first*, at ~CAD 35K, while the (putatively more "vocational"?) Physical Sciences and Life Sciences are (respectively) *third* and *fourth*, at just over and just under CAD 30K.
Y'all are saying that Phil job market is over-saturated, the culprit is provincial government, etc. I think this extenuates university admins' responsibility. While grad students at Western are having less than 15k CAD annual funding, Alan Shepard, the principal of Western is earning over 500K CAD a year. 500 GRANDS!!! Is this comparable to principal of the UofT or other universities in the states? IDK. But, even if the provincial government spend more money on higher education, when universities receive that money, how much of it do you think will go to grad students? How much would be employed to hire more admins paid over 100K a year? How much would straight go to Alan Shepards' pockets? If schools like Western refuse to allocate more money to grads in their financial plan now, what can stop them from doing so in the future, even if they have more money?
Canadian universities are just cartels. They don't value PhD students (not just phil phds, Johnny) and our works. They repress our wages and pretend they are also victims of provincial financial policies. How much does it change a person's living standard if their salary raises from 200K to 300K or to 400K? Probaly not much. But it means a lot to raise a person's income from 14K to 20k. Those assholes enjoy their 500K in their large mansions while seeing us starving in basements dim and damp!
And Charles, I don't agree with you on the idea that grads' lives in the states are not much better than ours. Just give me 18000 USD a year, I will just call that a livable life. 14K Canadian dollars? This is hell.
Way back in 2001 I rejected an offer from Toronto because I was offered, as I recall, about $16k CAD. I was aware of the various scholarship opportunities and was reassured by a lovely person in the department that my income would almost certainly be much more per year than that, but even so, after doing the math, I realized that I couldn't risk it. Simply moving there would have been absurdly costly (I lived in Saskatchewan at the time). It's hard to believe that, 23 years later, their stipend has increased by only $10k. I would guess that, given the cost of living in Toronto today, students in 2001 had it easier with their $16k than students do now with their $26k.
I was in grad school at UWO in the 1990s. We were given $ 12,000 CAN per year (plus a full tuition waiver). I put this in an inflation calculator – in today's dollars it is $ 22,500. I was living with a partner at the time, and she worked part-time outside of the academy. We could afford to live, but we did not indulge in luxuries … I was rarely (almost never) in the grad lounge. I do know real estate prices and rent have gone up dramatically across Canada. I did get a OGS one year – this made a difference. And one year I got a special (somewhat competitive) scholarship for those completing their dissertation (which required that one did not teach or tutor) – I was no richer for it, but I had more time. In those days, UWO TAs were paid about the same as U of T TAs. They say the administration did this as a way of ensuring that TAs did not unionize. After I left the TAs got a union.
There has been some discussion of the job market. It's worth noting that this year, there were about 15 TT Philosophy jobs in Canada – total. That includes jobs like the one at Cape Breton University where they already knew who they wanted but advertise the job out of legal obligation. It's nearly impossible as a Canadian to get a job in your own country.
Canadian universities do not hire their own PhDs. 50% of hires have foreign PhDs (usually US or UK), 25% UofT, 25% the rest of PhD programs in Canada. American universities weed us out as foreign nationals; they prefer not to have to jump through the hoop of sponsorship since they have plenty of American applicants. Same with the UK. A Canadian PhD is basically worthless (except maybe UofT). Trust me, I know.
Well put, Canadian PhD. Academic hiring committees in Canada may simultaneously advertise domestically and in other countries. If no "qualified" Canadians apply, the committee may hire a foreign candidate. Under these rules (instituted in 2001), many positions at Canadian research uni's have gone to foreign applicants. Sure, some foreigners graduate from Canadian programs, but the foreigners hired by Canadian uni's have, overwhelmingly, completed their graduate work outside Canada. The majority of Canadian philosophy jobs at research uni's go to either these foreign applicants or Canadians who did their grad work outside Canada.
I've long wondered what on earth the people on these hiring committees are thinking. If Canadian departments with grad programs persistently hire people who were not trained in Canadian programs, they're declaring (knowingly or not) that their own grad programs turn out inferior candidates. So why expect governments to assign you much priority in funding, esp. when you repeatedly state that the Canadians turned out by Cdn programs aren't even "qualified" for the advertised positions?
The states have 10 times more PhD programs than Canadians', and they have longer funding period (at least 5 years compared to our 4-year funding) and much better financial support. When Canadian PhDs are working their ass off on part-time job and struggling to barely survive and graduate in 4 years, PhD students in the states have plenty more time to prepare their materials for job application.
On the one hand, phil departments in Canada fill most of their faculty positions with PhDs from the states. On the other hand, they admit excessive amount of PhDs than they can seriously cultivate. One faculty member keeps telling me that 4 years is enough to finish the thesis and find a TT job. Yea yea yea, this is possible, but not very likely. Not to mention, how many of those graduating in 4 years and getting TT are in fact from privileged/wealthy/upper-mid class families, so they don't have to be haunted by financial issues? How about the others?
Per what past Canadian said above, Western hasn't in effect raised TA funding since 90s'! For the 3 whole decades, did the departments at Western or across Canada never come to any awareness that Canadian PhDs are loosing their edges because of the funding plight? I don't think so. But they still choose inaction and not firmly stand with us until the reputation of their PhD programs entirely collapse into dirt.
Charles,
Increasing the pool won't necessarily improve training or scholarship quality; and there's no reason to think that it would, given how so many of jobs are actually obtained these days. Furthermore, quality of quality, and exclusion with this in mind based on merit, is the way to go. Opening the floodgates will only exacerbate existing problems.
Moreover, deterring the financially precarious/the impecunious from pursuing low-paying, insecure philosophy jobs in a time of declining universities (let alone societies/empires) is, and remains, a superior idea. That is, at least till most universities can afford to provide quality salaries and stable, secure jobs for the majority of faculty (as TT faculty, not contract workers)—something that might not even ever happen again in our lifetime.
Last, you seem to have missed the point about the entrenchment of racist, sophomoric totalitarian ideologies in the form of (the false necessity of creating) DEI roles: the money should be better spent on other things, including upon the above-mentioned ones. Those offices are not mere sinecures; they are antithetical to the very idea of a university as place for the pursuit of genuine knowledge production and a space that encourage the challenging of dogmas. Did you read the Orwellian claptrap in the link provided, for example? (Johnny A, by contrast, helped universities to grow, thrive, and produce genuine knowledge.)
"American universities weed us out as foreign nationals; they prefer not to have to jump through the hoop of sponsorship since they have plenty of American applicants. Same with the UK."
I've never come across that happening in either country, but that might just be because I've been associated with fairly rarified institutions (Oxford, Pitt, USC).
"A Canadian PhD is basically worthless (except maybe UofT). Trust me, I know."
In philosophy of science (especially but not only physics) UWO is very strong – PGR puts it about fifth in the world in philosophy of physics, which looks right to me – and offhand I can think of several of its recent alumni who've got permanent or long-term jobs outside Canada. (Whether these funding issues will endanger that, I don't know.)
Hi Dr. Wallace, given that we admit 12ish!!! PhD students and over 10 MA students each year (while we can't afford to feed them at all!!), it's not unusual to see several alumni can stand out. Regarding the overall placement, however, I don't know…
Some PhD program applicants (like me) was harbouring a foolish and naive assumption thatPhD programs in NA would provide a funding package that's at least enough for us to survive in the place where the program is located. And it turns out Western is definitely an outlier.
Dr. Leiter, I sincerely hope you can put a specific section in next PGR on funding issues of PhD programs so more applicants can disperse that naive assumption. I admit I was dumb. But many programs' funding conditions also lack transparency. Western's funding consists of various parts, which makes it complicated for us to see how much we can really get each year. And many of us couldn't predict how much money will be in short each year and how much poor financial status could affect your PhD progress.
A Canadian PhD is certainly not worthless, so I agree with Professor Wallace. And it doesn't have to be from Toronto, as the success of graduates of several other Canadian programs (including in the U.S. market) also shows. Almost all programs admit more students than end up doing well, outside of a handful at the very top. I take the point about the need for more warnings than already exist about funding, and will pass it on to Professor Pynes. But I'd like to now call a moratorium on criticism of specific programs, as distinct from the general funding issues. Thanks.
"I've never come across that happening in either country, but that might just be because I've been associated with fairly rarified institutions (Oxford, Pitt, USC)."
I have, though not from R1 or R2 institutions (and not often, because I was only ever interviewed for two TT jobs, 1 VAP, and my current NTT job!) It came out in one interview, and in one or two rejections. Basically, few people–including in HR–seem to know that Canadians can work in the US without sponsorship (thanks to NAFTA). But it cuts both ways, to a certain extent; at most institutions outside of the major R1s/R2s here, non-Canadian applicants (/applicants without PR) are at a distinct disadvantage. Whether Canadians with Canadian PhDs are also at a distinct disadvantage is another matter (there's some evidence of that out there–someone once ran a study–but not for philosophy specifically).
"In philosophy of science (especially but not only physics) UWO is very strong – PGR puts it about fifth in the world in philosophy of physics, which looks right to me – and offhand I can think of several of its recent alumni who've got permanent or long-term jobs outside Canada. (Whether these funding issues will endanger that, I don't know.)"
Years ago (almost ten!), I tallied up the PhDs of everyone then working at ~82 MA- and PhD-granting programs in the US and Canada. As far as Canadian placements went, UofT had the largest share by far, with 89 (63 in Canada itself; a significant chunk of these are at UofT itself, however). Next was Western, with ~35 (I don't have the data with me for Western, though I know 27 of these were placed in Canada). After that, though… there was virtually nothing (just the odd one here and there; McGill and UBC, for example, each had, like, 1 total). (Université de Montréal and UQAM are exceptions, but that story is complicated by the fact that they mostly place at one another and other Francophone institutions in Canada, for which the pool of recruits is otherwise slim.)
The top placers into Canadian MA/PhD-granting departments, at the time, were Toronto (63), Oxford (27), Western (27), Pittsburgh (21), Princeton (15), and the Sorbonne (15–of which, IIRC, all but one was at UdeM/UQAM/Laval).
A'right, a'right, Dr. Leiter, I will stop my criticism. But I can say more about how my colleagues make it to survive here. If you find this also too critical, I find it's totally fine to not release it.
Friend A, studies history of phil, so has to spend more years in the program, takes out loan from OSAP (Ontario government-owned student loan system something).
Friend B, philosopher of physics, got a one-year support from their supervisor (but this is very rare cuz very few phil profs have extra money to support their students). Still gotta graduate ASAP in their fifth year.
Friend C, metaphysician,lucky enough, got one-year financial support from his home country's foundation.
Friend D, historian of phil, got ZERO available external support, can ONLY afford to buy groceries on weekly flyers . Told me a hundred times he would like to move to the office and live there to cut the cost.
Friend E, philosopher of mind, takes free-lancing jobs, almost live in the office.
Friend E, Aristotelian scholar, has long passed their funding period (now in 5th year probly), has to work almost full-time at a farm to pay tuition and survive while finishing the dissertation (yes, you have to pay full tuition even if you take ZERO course here).
Friends F1, F2, F3, F4…… move back home in summer to save money (but you gotta have a home to move back first ,and somebody got to cover that moving/traveling cost).
Friends H1, H2, H3, H4…… straight ask for family supports (might overlap with friends Fx).
Friends I1, I2, I3, I4…… spend over 20 hrs working on part-times (might overlap with friends Hx).
Friends J1 and J2 got external scholarships (very competitive)
Charles Bakker, he just said he takes out load from OSAP.
I work 2 part-times each year and ask my parents for around 6000 CAD a year. And I swear I am not living a life in any sense decent or good.
I agree that there is a need for more warnings/information concerning the low value of the funding packages that graduate students can expect to receive here in Canada. However, that needs be nuanced with the recognition that, as was mentioned above, healthcare is socialized here. As in, we all pay for healthcare through our taxes, and graduate students here can expect to pay relatively little in taxes, given that they tend to fall in a low, if not the lowest tax bracket, unsurprisingly. Thus, were I to get sick, or in a car accident, I would not have to worry about paying for my hospital stay, or services received. (There are some exceptions – prescription drugs still cost money.) Nor do I have to pay for medical insurance. I get that many schools have benefit packages meant to help with these sorts of costs – Western does – however, there is something deeply comforting about not generally worrying about how much it would cost, were I or my loved ones to need emergency care. This is especially relevant for grad students with dependents.
Charles Bakker: grad students in the US are typically on their university's health plan. Dependents too.
To be honest, I would much rather depend on Brown University health insurance than the Canadian national health system these days. Maybe some US grad students have it significantly worse, but I believe ours are fairly typical.
That's a good point. Also, it should be recognized that our healthcare system is not exactly top-notch. Granted, it is much better than no health care at all. But the wait-times are atrocious, even in emergency rooms.
With respect, I'm not sure which other Canadian programs you have in mind. Aside from UofT and Western, other Canadian programs can't place their students in TT jobs. McGill hasn't placed a student in a TT job in a full decade (based on their website), and Alberta and Memorial don't seem to fair better. That's not an indictment of specific programs, the problem is endemic.
Foreign universities won't hire us, and Canadian universities rather hire Americans.
BL COMMENT: I was not aware Memorial had a PhD program. I was thinking of British Columbia, McMaster, and York, all of which have placed graduates in tenure-track jobs–UBC, most recently, at a top 10ish US program.
Charles, I guess you haven't realized. International students are not covered by the Canadian universal healthcare plan. We pay around 2000 each year from our pocket for healthcare. My friends and their dependants in the US can join university's health plan, as Jamie Dreie said, and they pay around 5-600 a year.
That is actually slightly encouraging. Though I'll have to check out the overall numbers. If those programs are, say, only placing 10-20% of their students, applauding that would be damning them with faint praise.
BL COMMENT: I do not know anything about the placement success rate. I was responding to the strong, and false, claim that only Toronto and Western grads got tenure-track jobs.
A couple more factors working against Canadians from Canadian programs applying for Canadian jobs:
1. Mindset of a Colony. You must go away and succeed in a civilizational hub before you'll be accepted here. Historically, you had to study at Oxbridge or in France before Canadian universities would hire you. Now, the hubs are mostly in the USA. Without their imprimatur, hiring departments will doubt your abilities. The attitude has often been, "Well, if you didn't know enough to do your grad work in the States, you aren't savvy enough to join our dept." I saw similar attitudes esp among the progeny of Canadian professors, who never for a second seriously considered doing their doctoral work in Canada. One benefit of having hired more Americans and Europeans in Canada is that the newer generation of professors is less likely to have absorbed this colonial mindset.
2. Animosity at smaller Cdn universities towards faculty at the big Canadian grad schools. There must've been some serious snubs and even wars at Cdn phil conferences in the 70s-90s, because I picked up (at job interviews and conferences) on an attitude of real animosity in the smaller universities towards the big Cdn grad programs.
Oh Yusheng, I am so sorry to hear this! I had NOT realized this! Are tuition costs higher for international grad students as well? I know that they are for undergraduates.
I’ve been following discussions of placement data for a while, and it’s worth pointing out that a 20% placement rate is not out of hand for what are regarded as “top” programs even in the U.S. If you look at the APDA website, for the following programs here are the number of graduates in the five-year period 2019-2023 who were placed in TT positions at some point since they graduated:
US
Harvard: 4/18 = 22.2%
Michigan: 4/17: 23.5%
NYU: 9/20 = 45%
Pitt philosophy: 3/14 = 21.4%
Pitt HPS: 5/17 = 29.4
Princeton: 9/19 = 47.3%
Canada
Alberta: 1/7 = 14.3%
British Columbia: 2/12 = 16.6%
McGill: 0/26 = 0%
Toronto: 12/44 = 27.2%
Toronto (IHST): 3/17 = 17.6%
Data pulled from: https://placementdata.com/about.
There’s a lot to be said about this data. First, it’s not all there. Western Ontario isn’t recorded at APDA, and the data for the University of Montreal doesn’t appear to be complete, for instance. Second, the numbers are small, so even a couple more TT positions would move the needle 10% or more in some cases. Third, University placement pages sometimes differ from what the APDA reports. I had the occasion to look over the last five years’ of placement from Michigan in a discussion at Daily Nous a couple weeks ago, and based on their data they’d placed 11/18 graduates in TT positions in the last five years.
Also of note in the demographics of that data, based on what I could make of their website Michigan had placed 7/7 of their female graduates and 4/11 of their male graduates during the last five years. That was comparable to what I learned about Pitt philosophy from the 8-year period I was there, after I asked around for a copy of the placement information in 2015. And knowing what I did about the demographics of who was hired, and where, the pattern there was even more striking: outside of candidates for affirmative action, all but three of the other TT placements during that period went to Catholics at Catholic universities, foreign-born students teaching at universities in their home countries, and men who were spousal hires for women philosophers who got the job offer first.
Just some things to keep in mind as these conversations come up! It’s a terribly competitive market in academic philosophy today. Those of us who can make a living at it – even for a little while, and even if it’s by way of scraping together employment across a number of institutions – should consider ourselves fortunate. That may be cold comfort for Canadian grads organizing for larger stipends, but it’s important to bear in mind, I think, when it starts to look like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence (or border).
Just a quick note to say the presentation of the data at APD (the Jennings website) is extremely confusing and is woefully incomplete. It may be that 20% of Harvard graduates get tenure-track jobs their first-year on the market, but it is false that only 20% of Harvard graduates get tenure-track jobs (I realize Dr. Stovall does not make the latter claim, but I want to be sure people are clear on that). I looked at the data for University of Chicago, and it is comically incomplete (including regarding the positions of several PhD students I know and worked with). Dr. Stovall is right to flag the difference between the Jenning site and department homepages on this score. It has been a longstanding problem with the Jennings site that she likes to massage the data in odd ways:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2017/10/placement-in-phd-granting-program.html
Re: McGill placement: this is absolutely false. In the last ten years, McGill has placed (on the tenure track) at Toronto, Simon Fraser, Memorial, Providence College, Ahmedabad University, and South Dakota. Adding a year for 2013 adds Fordham, Maine, and Paris Est Créteil. All of this is on their placement page now (though one of those Tats doesn't look like one). There are also a number of Cégep placements which are permanent, but there's no tenure system there, and a few similar placements elsewhere in Canada.
That's not what you might expect from McGill, but it's not zero in ten years!
"It may be that 20% of Harvard graduates get tenure-track jobs their first-year on the market…"
I appreciate the follow up; just a quick clarification about this. What I reported was the APDA data on the number of graduates from those programs in those five years who received a TT position at *any point in those five years* (and similarly for the 8 years i was familiar with Pitt philosophy's placement) – not the number who received a TT position in their *first year* on the market. First-year TT positions would be even smaller. And as Professor Leiter emphasized in email correspondence, looking at a five-year period from 2014-2018 would in most cases increase the percentages – e.g., according to the APDA data for that period, Harvard goes from 22% to 73% (although according to Harvard's website the increase is to 59%), Pitt philosophy goes from 21% to 50%, and Toronto philosophy goes from 27% to 48%. Also worth noting that in the former analysis you're looking at a cohort that started PhD study somewhere close to a decade ago, and in the latter fifteen years ago.
At any rate, here's hoping our friends and colleagues in Canada come out better off on the other side.
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